Simplifi - What am I getting here? A "Just For Fun" Post

DannyB

Reading some of the discussions in the forum over the past 18 months and my own experience of Simplifi has caused me to think about what “exactly” do I get with and expect from Simplifi as it currently functions.

I was a Quicken user for close to 20 years. What I got with Quicken was, if not a full-on accounting system, at least one that was close to it. Since I had a unique income situation, investment accounts and, for awhile, a short term rental property, Quicken was a pretty good solution for my personal finance management with such features as account reconciliation, running account balances, extensive reporting, tax tracking, paycheck tracking, etc. And with all that came a certain level of complexity and a certain level of time commitment to maintain all the components.

When I made the move to Simplifi, a significant reason was to "downsize," so-to-speak. I wanted something that would give me a simple, straight forward way to keep track of my income and expenses without a lot of "extraneous" accounting type features that would require a lot of upkeep if used at all.

Simplifi fit the bill! Simplifi doesn't give me a full-on accounting package nor do I want that from Simplifi.

What I do get from Simplifi is a neat and easy to use personal finance app with an elegant process that allows me to keep track of my monthly inflow/outflow with a few vital extras to round out my personal financial picture.

I do appreciate that Simplifi is a work-in-progress and want the Simplifi team to continue to add functionality and improve work flow, connectivity, accuracy, etc. But I don't want Simplifi to become what Quicken already is and I think the whole philosophy and targeted market will keep Simplifi focused on remaining a personal fin app that will be accessible to those who simply don't need or want a full-on accounting app.

I know there are many feature requests for much of what is already present in something like Quicken, but, IMHO, a number of those just aren't necessary within the focus of Simplifi. The one thing that would be icing on the cake, so-to-speak, would be a means to incorporate non-monthly expenses that are a part of everyone's spending in the course of a year whether in the form of some kind if roll over feature or the incorporation of annual expenses in much the same way as monthly expenses are handled.

Otherwise, I'm quite happy with Simplifi and it comes very close to meeting my expectations. Close enough indeed that I continue to be an active Simplifi user.

bowgy4

Nice, Danny! I feel like I'm in the exact same situation you are, although I only used Quicken for about 7 years, plus some MS Money thrown in for good measure. Had a rental property - sold it. I want to track my money going in and out and like general categories, but I don't need to know exactly how much I spent on candy last year vs. produce :) I don't need to know the real time value of my house to know my net worth because I don't plan on selling my house at the drop of a hat - I usually check in on the value once or twice a year.

What I do want to do is track my inflows and outflows and save receipts for anything that doesn't send a receipt to my email but I may want to return or need warranty service in the future. My biggest issue is occasionally finding retroactive issues with data, whether it's duplicate entries, recurring income/bills that suddenly don't associate themselves with the actual transactions, or transfers that somehow didn't record themselves as transfers and show up as income and it never seems to be clear why it happened that way (sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't). It's the lack of consistency that keeps it from being an autopilot system that I can just open to see where I stand at any given point - I still have to actively review to keep it accurate.

What would be killer is if they could integrate with Amazon order history and categorize what the thousands are actually being spent on with my other expenses! :)

I'm quite a happy user too when the features available work and don't really have a desire for a lot of new features. The only major thorn in my side is missing a major financial institution and it's been an ongoing thing since I was a beta tester in 2019. Still working on it and still hopeful the issue is resolved.

DannyB

Yes, @bowgy4 , a work in progress indeed. Working on bugs and the inconsistencies you mention needs to be priority for some staff while other staff work on features that will make Simplifi even better. Sorry to hear that you're having a problem with major financial institution… Right now all mine are connecting smoothly.

The Amazon feature would be sweet, especially for those who do a lot of shopping on Amazon.

Flopbot

@DannyB , well said.

@bowgy4 , seven year Quicken Desktop user myself, too, and very thankful to have found a suitable replacement! Not knowing your specific situation or your specific reasoning for having chosen one bank over another, but I'd encourage you to give a little thought to if it might be worth switching banks to one that is currently supported…maybe it would be as simple as putting the unsupported bank on pause for the time-being till they get added. I understand this could be taken as "fightin' words" by some people, but is the pain of doing things manually in Simplifi outweighed by the pain of switching banks? Like with Danny - at this point - all my banks are supported and that was a somewhat conscious decision. Once it occurs, Simplifi becomes soo much easier to maintain and - though not quite autopilot - Simplifi is certainly an enjoyable copilot.

bowgy4

@Flopbot Unfortunately, can't switch. It's the state of Illinois' official 529 plan and we get up to a $20,000 a year tax deduction for using it. For now I just have to go in and add balance adjustment transactions from time to time to track the increased/decreased value of the investments.